Watch: Sharing the Motherload, the photovoice showcase 2025

Sharing The Motherload: Engaging fathers and other key stakeholders to transform gender policy and foster care economies. Exhibition at the Iziko South African National Gallery Annexe, Cape Town, South Africa.

On 20 September 2025, The Motherload Project launched Sharing the Motherload, a photovoice showcase at the Iziko South African National Gallery Annexe in Cape Town.

The showcase builds on three years of work exploring the realities of caregiving in the context of inequality and the legacies of colonialism and apartheid. The first showcase, in 2023, shared mothers’ voices.

From that work, it became clear: to shift care burdens and transform gender norms, fathers need to be part of the conversation. So this time, fathers joined the project.

Together, mothers and fathers reveal the struggles, strengths, and hopes that shape daily care in South Africa. Through images, collages, and stories, parents share their lived realities and powerful calls to action for better support.

Too often, policy is made without understanding the lives of those it is meant to serve. This showcase offers another way — showing that parents know what they need, and have clear, actionable solutions. The Motherload Project brings these insights directly to government, transforming how policy is made by centring lived experience. The Motherload Project is a partnership between parents, researchers, civil society, and government — working towards a future where care is recognised, supported, and more equitably shared.

Watch the video.